Media Forum: Has Channel 4 lost its lustre?(Channel Four Television Company Ltd.)

Is the station still delivering on its original promise, Alasdair Reid asks.

It was the year of the Falklands War and the Washington DC air disaster The Soviet Union was still in existence - and when it wasn't imprisoning the Polish Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, it was invading Afghanistan Nearer home, the Belfast-based DeLorean cars went bust and ... oh yes, Britain acquired a fourth television channel, named, rather appropriately, Channel 4. It came on air with a rather disposable problem-solving game, Countdown, on 2 November 1982.

A silver jubilee is always worth celebrating, and Channel 4 is certainly pushing the boat out - it's rather excited, for instance, that its '25 More Years of Change' party scheduled for later this month will feature Derren Brown performing 'mind-blowing acts' on the guests.

Which will come as a welcome distraction, because some of them might just be in a rather thoughtful mood. In some respects, this has been a troubled year for Channel 4.

Kevin Lygo's speech to the Edinburgh International TV Festival in August, where he flagged a return to more solid Channel 4 virtues (less trashy reality TV, basically), only served to remind people of the Celebrity Big Brother racism scandal and a broader feeling that the station has been losing its way.

This against a background of worries, voiced with increasing urgency by its chief executive, Andy Duncan, that Channel 4 will face a growing funding gap as audience fragmentation increases.

A far cry, you could argue, from much of the station's first decade, when it was a breath of fresh air - daring, provocative, challenging and fearlessly innovative.